Historian, avid novelist and political commentator Ross Fitzgerald AM has his fingers and toes crossed that life will soon imitate art in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The emeritus professor at Brisbane’s Griffith University has co-written a series of political satires with Ian McFadyen, of TV’s Comedy Company fame.

The Lowest Depths, released late last year, is the eighth in the series, which centres around anti-hero Grafton Everest.

The plot involves – spoiler alert –dictatorial President Vladimir Putrid being assassinated.

As Fitzgerald told Strewth: “My favourite teacher at Melbourne High School Norton Hobson (who is the basis for Mr Horton – the head of Australia’s privatised security agency in all my eight Grafton Everest novels) said, ‘Russians are bastards, they always have been bastards, and they always will be bastards. If you understand that boys, you can understand foreign policy!’ ”

We’ll be sure that we pass that piece of analysis on to Greg Sheridan.

Alice Workman, Strewth, The Australian, March 28, 2022, p 4.